<?php echo $image->getTitle() ?>

Overview: ICON

An introduction to ICON - Babies Cry, You Can Cope!

HSJ Value Awards Finalist 2019

ICON was shortlisted as a finalist in the HSJ Value Awards Communication Initiative Award.

HSJ Communication initiative award.jpg

What is abusive head trauma

  • ‘Shaken Baby Syndrome’
  • Child Abuse
  • Catastrophic injuries:
    • Bleeds in the brain and behind eyes
    • Fractures
  • Babies can be shaken, thrown or hit
  • It affects approximately 24 of every 100,000 babies admitted to hospital each year
  • Research suggests 1 in 9 mothers may have shaken their baby and up to 2 in 9 felt like doing so.

Who shakes and why?

  • 70% perpetrators are males – fathers/male surrogates (Kesler et a 2008; Altman et al 2010)
  • Can occur in every socio-economic group
  • Coping with crying: Living on the edge
  • Caregivers lose control and shake – baby stops crying
  • Demonstrable relationship between the normal peak of crying and babies subject to AHT. (Barr et al 2006)
  • Increase in cases in the 1st month of life, a peak at 6 weeks during the 2nd month and a decrease during the 3rd to 5th months of life

Triggers

  • Crying is considered the main trigger
  • Peak of crying is 6-8 weeks of age
  • The parents or the mothers partner are responsible for AHT in 75% of babies
  • A majority of perpetrators are male
  • The most at risk groups are:
    • Male baby
    • Below 6 months
    • Low birth weight
    • Regular contact with health professionals

Crying Curve

Curves - icon.png

ICON Prevention

ICON prevention.jpg

The ICON message is delivered through primary prevention interventions, population based awareness, raising public health interventions and secondary prevention interventions. The materials to support the programme have been co-designed and agreed by a multi-agency steering group, a group of parents and families affected by AHT and include a wrap-around brief e-learning education package designed for professionals of all agencies who have contact with families who have babies. The core programme of ‘touch point’ interventions includes:

  • Community midwifery intervention at 36 weeks gestation
  • Hospital based intervention at birth
  • Community midwifery intervention < 10 days
  • Health Visitor (HV) intervention at primary birth visit
  • HV team intervention < 3 weeks
  • GP intervention at 6/8 week check

The ICON programme was launched to professionals at an event in Pan-Cheshire on 17th July 2019.

Back to Abusive Head Trauma/ICON toolkit